How to be Good at Anything Says William D King: A Short Lesson in Entrepreneurship
First, understand that there is nothing unique about your situation. You are one person with the same problems as millions of other people around the world. And most of those people struggle and fail before they succeed (if they ever achieve). They need motivation and guidance like everyone else. “If only I had someone who could help me figure out …” – that’s probably what you were going to say next.
William D King says, no matter what problem you face, someone has come across it already. Someone has found their way through it and can help you do the same thing. There is no reason for panic or self-pity because you have something in common with everyone else. Ask for help; it’s okay to need it.
Second, put yourself in that other person’s shoes. What did they do? How did they get where you want to be? You learned how to walk (and ride a bike) without anyone telling you how. It wasn’t even “learning”; it was more like trying and failing until you got it right. “The Lean Startup” describes this process as the build-measure-learn feedback loop. Every time someone learns something new, they go through this process regardless of whether or not they are aware of doing so. This is true when learning how to tie your shoelaces or when Elon Musk decided he would go from being worth millions of dollars to be a multibillionaire.
You can apply the same way of thinking to how you learn anything new, which is just a fancy term for “figure out how to be good at something.” You observe others who have discovered that thing already and then break down what they did into manageable steps. Then you try each step on your own until you get it right! That’s it. Don’t get overwhelmed by all of this “startup” talk; it’s no different from learning anything else.
Third, you need to read some books. This might seem daunting because there are so many books in the world with valuable information, but every single book was written by somebody good at something. At the end of each book is a list of books that other people recommend, which means there are even more books you can read (and they might be easier to understand since it’s someone else’s job to explain everything). The ones that I would start with are:
“The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries
“Zero To One” by Peter Thiel
“Start With Why” by Simon Sinek
And if you want to know what the world’s most successful entrepreneurs think about how to succeed, read these books instead:
Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance (any one of them will do)
Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates by various authors (I haven’t read these yet, but they seem interesting)
You should also get on the mailing list for Elon Musk’s companies: SolarCity and Tesla Motors. They send out updates on what they’re working on, and you can get a sense of how he thinks. I got into both before their IPOs (Initial Public Offerings or when they first started selling stock to the public) and made a little money from it. Although I didn’t make enough to retire, it was more than I had before, so that was exciting!
Fourth, don’t be afraid to ask questions. Everyone starts at zero, so we all have many questions about how things work and why we do certain things in specific ways. If you are too shy to ask, try asking these questions on Quora. Quora is like Yahoo Answers but for intelligent people (or at least people who are confident enough to answer questions). You can post your question or answer other people’s questions. It’s okay if you mess up because the way you learn something is by doing it wrong first.
Depending on what type of person you are, you will either love or hate this article. If I’m talking too much without saying anything, that probably means you don’t like it and should tell me what I missed in the comments section. However, if you liked it, then feel free to share it with someone who needs inspiration! The above article is loved by William D King.
